Pulling a boat line out of the 79th Street Boat basin on the Hudson River recently resulted in a pier squiggling with isopods. They had clearly found the rope, submerged since the spring, to their liking. 
Isopoda are an order of crustaceans. Most are aquatic, but you may be more familiar with the terrestrial type, the woodlice (pillbug and roly-polies).
So there are over 10,000 species of isopods known. Shout out if you know any these…
Posts Tagged 'Hudson'
Tiger Beetle
Published October 16, 2016 Fieldnotes Leave a CommentTags: beetles, Hudson, insects, invertebrates
A Common Claybank Tiger Beetle (Cicindela limbalis). Also known as the Green-margined Tiger Beetle. Spotted by a owl-eyed friend on a lichen-anchored rock on Mt. Taurus up above Cold Spring, NY, on a recent hike. Tiger beetles, in addition to being stripy are fast-moving predators of other insects.
This was the view from up there.
Chimneys and their Swifts
Published June 10, 2016 Fieldnotes Leave a CommentTags: birding, birds, Brooklyn, Hudson
Brick chimneys are things of beauty, old utilitarian architecture made pleasing by shape and material. Bricks, made of clay, sand, shale, and heat, have a particularly earthy appeal.
I’m posting this today to remind us of the Chimney Swifts (Chaetura pelagica) overhead now. I see and hear them regularly both on top of the Harbor Hill Moraine and elsewhere in the city. Do you? Their distinctive calls usually alert me to look up. I call it a “chittering.” Here’s a sample from Cornell, where they call it a “twitter.”
Swifts — we have one species here on the East Coast; there are about 100 species world-wide — are distinctive in flight too, stiff-winged (rather bat-like to some observers) and short-tailed. R.T. Peterson famously described Chimney Swifts as cigars with wings. They fly all day, gobbling up insects, but really seem to get noticed during these late twilights of June. They look quite dark because we usually see them in silhouette, but are actually tan-brown up-close.
But I’ve never been very close and don’t have a single photo to share. Chimney Swifts can’t perch. They cling to vertical surfaces, and nest inside chimneys, air vents, and hollow trees. As America central-heated and then rusted-out, the number of both domestic and industrial chimneys dropped substantially, having a detrimental effect on the species’ population, but the city still provides them with their namesake structures.
I don’t know if the chimney above, located in Red Hook, is home to anybody. The only actual chimney I’ve ever seen Swifts come out of was located in Beacon, NY. Yet the birds are almost always above us this time of year, so they’re roosting and nesting somewhere near…
Early Autumn
Published October 12, 2015 Fieldnotes Leave a CommentTags: flowers, Hudson, plants, trees
The view towards Storm King Mountain.
White Oak
Published November 12, 2014 Fieldnotes Leave a CommentTags: Brooklyn, galls, Green-Wood, Hudson, trees
The pale underside of some Eastern White Oak (Quercus alba) leaves found on Mt. Taurus.
This is another specimen of the tree, two weeks later, in Green-Wood. It’s been a spectacular fall. 
Same tree, with some Hedgehog Galls. I also explore these fuzzy galls a little more here.
A fist-sized clump of resin. Usually associated with coniferous trees, this frozen waterfall of hydrocarbons, and several others, were on a deciduous tree I couldn’t identify on the Lyndhurst estate in Tarrytown. (The grounds are a 19th century landscaper’s dream, rich with exotica.)
Resins seem to have a defensive function, battling insects and smaller threats. Better living through chemistry? Humans have long used such resins for incense (as in the biblical frankincense and myrrh) and perfume, varnish, and glues. Honeybees certainly exploit the prophylactic value of resin in their product propolis, which is used to reinforce their hives against harmful bacteria, parasites, and fungi.
And over the long, long haul, the wondrous substance amber is just resin plus time. The choicest pieces of fossilized resin, at least outside the jewelry world, have insects perfectly preserved inside of them. Insects tens of millions of years old and preserved down to the finest detail.
“Amber” is from the Arabic ‘anbar, and originally referred to what we now call ambergris, the strange intestinal product of sperm whales. There was a lack of knowledge over the source of ambergris, or grey amber, and since ambre jaune, or yellow amber, was also found washed up on the shore, they were thought to be related. As Melville noted, it was hard to reconcile the perfumes made with ambergris with the guts of a whale, probably harder to reconcile than rich scents from the blood of trees.
One last boating trip of the year.
The Commodore headed up the Hudson for a look at the leaves.
A hazy afternoon made for some impressionistic views.
A wet, leaf-rotting, ground-enriching fall is good mushroom weather.
This is an approximation of the light on this appropriately yellow-blazed trail on Saturday afternoon. It was a tonic that cured what ailed us. Whatever it was that ailed us. The sun had a been a little spotty before this, and the scrubby oaks atop the hill were mostly fallen, so coming into this batch of American Beech was absolutely magical.
An American Toad looking for a place to burrow down for winter.
Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe with tiny spider.
A scattering of lichen on smooth granite. 
Big walnuts.
All seen on Old Croton Aqueduct Trail or in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where lies Washington Irving.
Backyard and Beyond 